


The Wildest Woe

by alexcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anger, Angry Natasha Romanov, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Love, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 05:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17801918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: Steve is hurt on a mission and Natasha gets angry. Over time, many things shake out, maybe even love.





	The Wildest Woe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an [**Avengerkink Prompt**](https://avengerkink.livejournal.com/20598.html?thread=51008630#t51008630).

_The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love._  
~~Pearl Bailey 

*

“Get back! Fall Back!” Steve shouted to the others. They’d expected a little resistance when they raided the cache of old Stark weaponry, but not like this. This was a damned one man army! And the army appeared to be some sort of enhanced blob-like thing. It kept coming back, no matter how many times they hit it. 

Steve had an idea. He was glad that Thor had been on Earth when this call came in. 

“Thor?” he said over the com. “I’ve got an idea. I think that I can hold this thing, if you’ll hit it with your hammer. It won’t take long.”

Thor wasn’t the only one listening. 

“Are you nuts?” Stark asked.

“Can you withstand Thor’s lightning?” Natasha asked. Steve was a bigger fool than she thought he was! “The lightning’ll kill you if that monster doesn’t!” 

“I’m with her,” Clint chimed in. 

“So how do we _stop_ it before it decides to attack the population? We’re not that far from Kandahar,” Steve asked them. “Thor, ready?” 

“I’m right behind you.” 

Steve approached the huge red thing – it looked like the blob in some old science fiction movie from the 50s that they’d all watched the other night. It had come in from somewhere outside earth with some human help, whom they’d mostly beaten into submission. Fury had people there taking the humans away in choppers.

But this thing, this thing the Avengers were going to have to deal with. It slapped them away like insects every time any of them got too close. 

Steve approached it, trying to decide if it had an actual back to jump on. Indeed, he wasn’t even sure it had eyes or a face. One side looked pretty much like the other. It made a noise and he pounced on it. Rogers was a big man, but he looked like a kitten on an elephant’s back. It tried to fling him away, but he held on, sinking his hands into its slimy body. 

“Now, Thor! Now!” he yelled as the gelatinous thing began to seemingly absorb him. His hands sank deeper, followed by his forearms. Soon his whole body was sinking into the creature.

Just seconds before his head was sucked into the glob, Thor brought his hammer down directly on the creature. 

Steve wasn’t sure who screamed louder, him or the blob. He hung on and screamed some more. For a second, even his head was inside the thick, gooey mass of the creature. Then everything went black. 

*

“Is he going to be all right?” Natasha had barely moved far enough away from Rogers for Banner to be able to check his wounds and scan his vital organs and bones. 

“I can’t tell, Natasha. You’re in the way.” Banner did not say it unkindly, though. 

They all had been terrified when the monster had exploded and Steve had gone flying through the air and landed over five hundred yards from the explosion. He hadn’t moved either. Tony flew to him, but only got there seconds before the others. He’d been unconscious when they’d loaded him in the Quinjet and hurried to the waiting helicarrier. 

He was still out, but Bruce hadn’t found any injuries that would kill him. Now it was time to get the suit off so he could really take a look at him. 

“Thor, can you help me?” Bruce asked. 

The tall Asgardian nodded and came closer. 

“Tony, can I cut this thing off? Nothing in it will explode or anything?” Bruce asked. 

“It’s all right. Anything electric fried anyway when he was hit with that thunderbolt.”

Bruce and Thor began to gently cut his suit away. Bruce drew a sharp breath when he saw Steve underneath. He was bruised almost everywhere. His skin was black and purple. The veins stood out in dark relief like veins on marble. When they turned him over, every one of his vertebrae had made a bruise on his back in a shocking pattern down his spine.

They had arrived close enough to Avengers headquarters to move him into the tower and to get access to better medical equipment quickly.

“My god, he’s a mess,” Bruce murmured. “Let’s get the scans done as quickly as we can.”

They all saw how scared Bruce looked. They helped move Steve as gently as they could onto the scanner table. Bruce did the scans as quickly as he could and as thoroughly. Natasha wouldn’t leave the room, Thor kept trying to soothe her and Clint kept pacing like a tiger. Tony was in his workshop, but they all knew that it was the only way he could cope. 

Steve, mercifully, was still out when Bruce finished with the scans. 

“Okay, he has some nasty bruises and contusions. He has several cracked bones as well, two in his left leg, one in his shoulder, and one of his vertebrae is cracked. Several of his ribs are broken as well on his left side. This appears to be from the impact of him hitting the ground. 

“He has burns from Thor’s lightning, that’s what the veins are standing out from. Those should be all right in a few days. The cuts and bruises might take several days as well. I don’t see any severe damage to his organs. Thor and the other guy are the only other ones who could survive this.

“He will heal. He’ll hurt a lot since most pain meds don’t work too well because of the serum.”

“I have some herbs from Asgard. They work on us. Maybe we can try them on Rogers,” Thor said as he and Banner removed the last bits of Steve’s suit.

Banner nodded. “It can’t hurt, I don’t think. Maybe we can make some kind of injectable so we can put it in a drip to help him all the time if it works.” 

Steve began to stir. 

*

Every single beat of his heart hurt. His entire body hurt. Badly. He tried to speak, but the pain of breathing was too bad. 

His eyes finally focused enough that he saw Banner and Thor. 

“Don’t try to talk. You got hurt on the mission. You’ll be all right, but the serum needs time to heal you. Thor has some Asgardian medicine that might help with the pain. I’m going to put a drop or two in your mouth. Only swallow if you can. There isn’t enough to choke you even if you can’t swallow it, if you don’t panic. It’ll slide right down.”

Steve could barely move so he blinked once. Bruce nodded and used a dropper to drop one drop into his mouth. The taste was odd, but not unpleasant. Not long after it slid down his throat, the pain slowly receded. It wasn’t completely gone, but he could breathe without too much trouble. 

He drifted. 

*

Natasha was in Thor’s face as soon as he came out of Steve’s room. “Why did you do that? You could have killed him.” 

“He asked me to and it seemed to be the only solution. Nothing else was working.” 

“He’s a stupid, self-sacrificing fool! You can’t listen to him.”

Natasha was furious at Thor and he wanted to grab her and hold her, tell her that Steve would be fine, but he was sure she’d probably knife him. He’d had enough of that from his own brother. He stayed quiet. It seemed the best choice for now. 

Bruce came out. Natasha ran to him. 

“He woke for a few minutes and we gave him some Asgardian pain killers. He’s asleep again.”

“Is that stuff safe for him?” Natasha was in Bruce’s face now. 

“Back off, Nat. He’s going to be all right. It may take a few weeks.” 

“I’m going to see him.” She disappeared into the room. 

Bruce was tired and it showed on his face. “I’m going to shower and find some food. Has anyone seen Tony?” 

“He said something about ‘fixing the damned suit’ and was gone as soon as we got here,” Thor answered. 

Bruce went to his quarters and showered. He was more worried about Steve than he’d let on. He’d feared the electricity had done something to his heart, but Steve’s heartbeat had been strong and regular. 

He didn’t tell them all the damage he saw. There was more breakage than he’d told them and his organs, while intact, seemed to be distressed. His kidneys were functioning but not well and one of his lungs looked as if it had collapsed in the fall. He might have to clean out the blood from the fall to get it working properly. With the serum, Steve usually healed these kinds of things himself. 

Bruce wished they had him in a hospital instead of the medical unit here at Avengers Tower. He was the most experienced doctor here and he felt that he was way out of his depth. 

After he ate a sandwich, he went to Tony’s workshop. 

“So how’s Cap?” Tony asked when Bruce stepped through the automatic door. 

“He’s a mess. I’d feel better if we had him in a hospital.” 

“We’ve got the best medical tech here.” Tony looked more nervous and frightened than he sounded.

“But I’m not the best doctor. I can patch him up and keep an eye on him, but if he needs surgery, you’re going to need someone else.”

“I can talk to Rhodey, see if the military has a doc they can send.” 

“You can’t call Hill or Fury?” 

Tony sighed. “I don’t want to. But yeah, if you think it’s for the best, I will.” 

“I do. And soon, Tony.”

Tony laid the Captain America suit he was working on to the side and said, “JARVIS, get Nick Fury for me.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Fury’s voice came through his phone. “Stark? What is it?” 

“Um, Nick, Director Fury, we’ve had an accident and we need a doctor to hang here for a few days.” 

“What the hell have you done?” Fury didn’t sound any angrier than he always sounded. 

“Rogers took a hit from Thor’s hammer during the last mission and he may need some surgery. We need a doctor here to take care of him and operate if he needs it.”

“All right. Sending Dr. Winston. Hill will bring her via Quinjet in the next hour. Don’t you let my captain die, Stark.”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that, Fury. Not easy to tell Rogers no.”

“All right. Keep me updated.” 

And he was gone. 

“Thanks, Tony.” Bruce approached Stark. “Are you hurt? You took several nasty hits when that thing threw you.” 

“Some bruises is all.”

“Let me decide that.”

Tony yanked his shirt over his head. He was black and blue as well, just not nearly as battered as Rogers. 

“Breathing all right?” Bruce asked. 

“Yeah. Just bruised. How bad is he, Bruce?” 

“You’d be dead, Stark. He’s battered and broken. He has a collapsed lung, too, I think. It may need surgery. The bones will heal.” 

“Everyone else okay?” Tony asked. 

“Natasha is angry. At Thor and Steve, I think. She doesn’t do well when her family is hurt.”

“I need to meet the damn plane, I guess, and keep Hill from killing anyone. We’re down one man now, as it is.” 

Bruce nodded and went to check on Rogers again. 

*

Natasha was sitting by the bed when he opened his eyes. She grinned, well, smirked. “How you feeling, sport?” 

“Like shit,” he whispered faintly. His chest hurt still when he tried to breathe, but then everything hurt, even his hair, it seemed. 

“You look like shit, too. Bruce says you’ll live.” 

“Did we stop it?” 

“Yes, you stupid bonehead. You and Thor killed it and almost killed yourself, too.” 

He closed his eyes and sighed. 

“Asshole!” she whispered as she gently touched his hand. 

*

Maria Hill and Dr. Callie Winston arrived two hours later. Tony met the Quinjet on the landing pad on the roof. 

“What did you do now?” Hill asked him.

“Me? It’s your fair haired boy who fucked up and nearly got himself killed.” 

“Not your bright idea this time then?” They were in the elevator, heading to the medical floor. 

“Steve’s. Thor went along with it.” 

“You’re all nuts.” 

Dr. Winston was a tall brunette woman, mid-thirties. She exuded efficiency and warmth in equal measures. Tony liked her on sight. 

“This is Dr. Winston. She’ll help Bruce and operate on Rogers if need be,” Maria said by way of introduction. She was no more or less irritated than she usually was with Stark. 

Dr. Winston offered her hand and Tony shook it, something he seldom did. Her handshake was firm and her smile genuine. So were Tony’s.

“Please call me Callie.” Her accent was British, softened by many years in the US, sort of like Aunt Peggy’s had been. 

“Wait ‘til you see our Captain. He’s kind of a mess right now. Hope you can fix him.” 

“I do, too. I’d sure like to get a look at your chest while I’m here.” 

“I’d be flattered if I wasn’t sure that it’s the Arc Reactor you’re wanting to see,” Stark said as they got off the elevator. “After you’ve looked at Rogers, I’ll let you see it all you want to.” 

She smiled and nodded. 

Natasha and Bruce were with Steve when they arrived at his room. Natasha didn’t offer a greeting, but Bruce met them at the door. Tony disappeared back to his workshop with a wave. 

“Dr. Winston, we’ve met before.” 

She smiled and shook his hand. “I remember. It’s been a while though.” They had met before Banner’s gamma ray accident. Her handshake and smile were as warm toward Banner as they’d been toward Stark. 

“Poor dear, he’s taken a bad one, hasn’t he?” she asked as she looked at the patient. “Do you have his scans, Dr. Banner?”

The two doctors stepped over to the computer to look at scans and bloodwork while Maria Hill stood beside Steve’s bed. 

“Has he been awake?” she asked Natasha. 

“Yeah, he’s in and out. Thor gave Bruce some Asgardian pain meds for him. They seem to keep him asleep mostly.”

“Probably a good thing. Callie’s a good doctor. She’ll take good care of him.” Maria looked like she wanted to say something, then she finally asked, “Are you all right, Natasha? You look scared to death.” 

Natasha motioned for her to go out of the room. They stepped outside. “He’s reckless and stupid – or he was this time. He could have died and none of us could stop him,” she told Maria. “I _am_ scared. I don’t know what we’d do without him. I’m pissed that I care as much as I do.”

Maria nodded. She lived this way every day, too. Some of the agents were dear friends and she’d buried more than one of them these last few years. It was a hard life. 

“Bruce assured us that he’ll recover,” she told Natasha. 

“But the dumbass will do it again and again. Until he does die someday.”

“Would you want him to be any other way though, really?” Maria asked her. 

“No, but I’m tired of people leaving me, Maria.”

Maria nodded. “This one’s not gone yet. Cross that bridge when you come to it.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get back to DC. Fury will be expecting his report.” 

And she took her leave. 

*

A strange woman stood by his bed when he woke. 

“Captain Rogers, I’m Callie. I’m a doctor. Director Fury sent me to help Dr. Banner out.” 

She sounded like Peggy! He tried to smile. “Hello,” he finally whispered. 

“You’ve gotten yourself a collapsed lung. That’s one reason it hurts to breathe, but we think your serum will heal it instead of having to operate to repair it.” She leaned down close and smiled at him. “You and I better get you well soon or your redheaded friend is going to kill me, I think.” 

She smelled nice. He smiled or at least, tried to. 

“You’re lucky to have such loyal friends, Captain Rogers. I hope you’ll count me as one of them soon, too. I’m going to let you get back to resting. That’s the best therapy right now for your injuries.” She gently touched his cheek and was gone. 

Steve didn’t go back to sleep immediately. He tried moving his head and it moved, stiffly and painfully but he could move. He saw that he was hooked up to a drip and saw several machines whirring and clicking on stands throughout the room. He noticed the walls were really windows so he could be seen from the outside of the room. 

He wondered if he was in an actual hospital. 

He tried to speak again and found he could though he was a bit breathless. The pretty doctor had said he had a – what had she said? Something about his lung. 

He was tired and closed his eyes again. 

*

Clint was sitting beside Natasha. “You need some rest and a bath. You smell,” Clint wrinkled his nose at her. He was the only person on earth who could get away with saying that. Anyone else would have a broken nose. Or worse.

“I don’t want to leave him.” 

“I’ll stay until you shower and take a nap. I won’t leave unless Bruce or Callie run me off.” 

“Callie, is it?” She cocked an eyebrow at him. 

“Callie sewed me back together a couple of times.” 

“Don’t you dare go anywhere. I’ll be back soon.” 

“Get a nap, Nat. I’ll be here.”

She took off. 

Clint watched Rogers sleep. He owed him for taking him back into the fold on his and Natasha’s word. He was still angry over the fact that he’d been mind-fucked by Loki, but Rogers had forgiven that as if it never happened. He looked at Rogers. Poor guy was a mess. 

He’d never seen Natasha like this over anyone. Was there something between her and Rogers that he didn’t know about? She’d stayed out of relationships since he’d known her. He knew that part of it was the things she’d been forced to do in her former work. She’d whored and murdered for the Russians ever since she was a child in that godforsaken Red Room. He’d never seen her voluntarily touch another human being outside the line of duty until now. 

When he’d come in, she’d been holding Rogers’ hand. He was asleep. But she’d held it just the same. 

“Barton?” Steve whispered.

“I sent Nat to eat and shower. She smelled worse than you do,” Clint said lightly. 

“She okay?” 

“Yeah. She has some idea that she has to guard you… maybe she’s scared Stark will take up surgery.” 

Steve smiled. “Tony okay?” 

“We’re all fine. Tony is working on your suit, trying to make it lightning proof, I think.”

Rogers nodded and went back to sleep. 

Natasha was back in less than an hour. 

“You didn’t sleep.”

“I’ll nap here.” She sipped the coffee she brought with her. 

“Why are you here all the time anyway? He’s okay and he’s being taken care of.” 

“I – he’s my friend. I don’t have many. You, him, maybe Stark and Banner. I need to see that he is all right, need to take care of him myself.”

Clint nodded. “Good enough then. Try to nap while he sleeps. He did wake up and talk a little. Asked where you were. I told him you smelled worse than he does.”

She wrinkled her nose. “He does need cleaning… not sure we can move him much though. I’ll ask Bruce and Dr. Winston.”

“Ask us what?” Bruce said as they came through the door. 

“Can we bathe him?” she asked. 

“We?” 

“Me and Barton?” Clint looked at Banner and shrugged. 

“Sure. Don’t move him much and when you do move him on his side, move him on the right one. I don’t want to put any undue pressure on the left lung.” 

Natasha started looking in the cabinets for supplies. There were none. She disappeared out the door and was back with a basin, towels, bath cloths and soap. 

“Can you make sure he’s drugged so he won’t feel it much?” Natasha asked Bruce. 

“Sure and I’ll help with him.” 

The three set about bathing Steve, gently soaping his filthy skin and washing it with warm water, then doing it again to get all the filth off of him. It took several washings, but they finally got the grime off. He was still black and blue all over. She didn’t know who blushed worse when they washed his private parts, her or Bruce. His face was as bruised as the rest of him, but he looked better after they’d washed it and had used the soapy cloth to wash his hair as best they could. She’d combed it back when they were done. 

Sometime in the past, Clint had done some orderly work and he changed the sheets as they moved Rogers from one side to the other. They put powder and lotion on him and covered him with clean sheets and warm blankets. 

Natasha leaned over him when they were done and kissed his forehead. Banner and Barton pretended they didn’t see her do it.

*

She was asleep when he woke. She had her head on the bed beside him. He didn’t want to wake her so he watched her sleep. He was still watching when she raised her head and smiled sleepily at him. 

“Hello, sunshine,” he whispered. 

“Steve,” was all she said as she gently squeezed his hand. 

“I’m thirsty.” 

She got him some ice chips. “Bruce said you can have ice at first, then water if you do okay.” 

He sighed happily as she spooned the ice bits into his mouth. He didn’t think anything had tasted so wonderful in a long time. 

“We bathed you while you were asleep. Barton said you smelled as bad as I did before I showered.”

“Feels better.” 

*

Dr. Winston came in about an hour later. Natasha had gone to the bathroom and to get some more coffee.

“Do you want to sit up, Captain Rogers?” 

He blushed a nice pink and told her, “I need to pee, ma’am.”

She laughed and he turned even redder. She looked in the cabinets and found a portable urinal. She handed it to him. “Can you manage it by yourself?”

He nodded. 

“I’ll step out then and you can tell me when you’re done. Then we’ll find you a gown and set you up for a bit.”

He only took a few minutes and called her back. Natasha was with her this time. The doctor had a gown when she came back in and after emptying the urinal, she and Natasha helped him sit up. He grunted a few times in pain.

“Dizzy at all?” Dr. Winston asked.

“Nope, just sore all over… I think my hair even hurts some.”

“The serum should have you up and walking in a few hours. I’ve read the notes on your injuries in the war and how quickly you heal.”

He finally seemed to realize he was stark naked. He was used to being probed and prodded and being naked, but not in front of Natasha. Dr. Winston put the backless hospital gown she’d fetched on him, tying it behind. 

“Better?” she asked. 

He smiled at her, then winced. She wanted to pet him and hug him, but SHIELD would frown on its doctors hugging patients. 

“Oh, if the ice didn’t bother you, you can have some juice or soda if you like. We’ll get some food in you later today I’d think, as well. How is the breathing?”

“Hurts. Not as bad though,” he told her.

“I’ll be back later. Get help to move the first few times you do, until we know you won’t pass out.”

She left him. 

“Look at you in that sexy gown,” Natasha teased him. 

He surprised her when he teased back. “You like it better than naked?” 

“I was a good girl and didn’t peep,” she lied.

He walked a little in the afternoon, though he was still sore all over. Natasha assured him that moving would make him better faster. He was not inclined to believe her just yet. 

Bruce had cut back on the Asgardian pain meds so he was less drowsy now. 

Thor came by, all sweet and apologetic. He seemed afraid Natasha was going to pounce on him at any time. 

“Is there anything I can do for you, Rogers?” 

“I’m good. Natasha could use a meal. She’s barely had anything to eat since I’ve been here. Take her to dinner or bring her something to eat?” 

“Don’t get bossy, Rogers,” Natasha teased. “I am hungry though.” 

“Shall I fetch food for you then?” Thor asked, clearly wanting to help somehow. 

“Cheeseburger and fries. The little diner on the first floor makes good ones.” 

He returned in a few minutes with Natasha’s food and a soda for her and one for Steve as well. She kissed his cheek in thanks. 

Steve watched her eat, licking ketchup from her fingers and taking big, hungry bites of her burger. He wasn’t sure he ever thought eating was sexy before, but he did now. He almost laughed at his own thoughts. When she finished, she daintily wiped her mouth and kissed his cheek. 

By dinner time, he was hungry. Natasha sneaked him a chocolate milkshake. 

* 

He slept. Every time he woke in the night, there she was. Natasha. Sleeping with her head on his bed again. 

He needed to get up and go to the bathroom. The doctor had removed the IV before bedtime and finally let him put on some sweats and a t-shirt. He was sore as hell, still black and blue, too, but the serum was healing him pretty quickly. Some of the black and blue was already fading to yellow and the veins weren’t showing any more. He ached all over, but the cracked bones had already healed, as a scan had shone after dinner. 

Thirty-six hours since they’d defeated that godawful thing. He cringed to think what it might have done without Thor and his hammer. 

As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, a hand grabbed his and Natasha’s head came up. “Where’re you going?” 

“Bathroom.” 

“Let me help you get up.”

“I can do it all right now.” He started to stand and she was there, in front of him, her face like a thundercloud. “What?” he asked. 

“I want to kill your stupid ass right now,” she spat out. “Do you know how – do you really think any of us like your self-sacrificing shit?” 

“Someone had to stop it.” 

“No, Thor had to stop it. You just never trust anyone else to do anything. “

“Natasha, I’m okay.”

“This time, but you’ll do it again, you idiot.”

“It’s my job.”

“I cannot bury you, you stupid man,” she hissed through clinched teeth. “I won’t.”

Something more than he understood was happening here. Wasn’t it? 

“It’s only been a day and I’m almost healed. Even my lung is better, Dr. Winston said.”

“But what if you weren’t? What if you’d been blown to bits when the blob was?” she grabbed his arms and gripped both of his forearms hard enough to actually hurt. 

“Nat -” was all he got out before she stomped out of the room.

Steve knew he was not the best judge of what people, especially women, thought, but he’d thought he understood Natasha better than he did most people. Boy, was he wrong. Why was she so angry with him? 

*

Natasha was so angry that she not only left the room, she left the city all together. She flew down to DC and invaded Maria Hill’s office. 

“Send me somewhere on an assignment. I don’t care where. I’m so mad at Rogers, that if I stay, I’m going to gut him.”

“Do you want to talk to Director Fury?” 

“If you don’t have anything, yeah”

“I do, but I want Fury to decide if he wants to send you,” Hill answered.

She went to Fury’s office. 

“This is a fairly long assignment. I need to you to infiltrate a group of anarchists called Kill Them All who are buying Chitauri tech on the black market. Given their history, they plan to use the weaponry to make a big mess with major casualties somewhere.”

“Where are they now?” 

“London and Berlin, our intelligence says. Once you get an in with them, we can send Barton in as well. We need to recover the tech, getting the anarchists is secondary. They are completely expendable if they need to be.”

She flashed him a dangerous smile. “When do I leave?”

“As soon as Hill briefs you on the details.”

She nodded and rose. This would definitely give her something to do to get her mind off Steve fucking Rogers. 

*

Steve healed over the next few weeks until he was as good as ever. 

But he wasn’t. 

There had been no word from Natasha since she’d stormed out. No one here could tell him where she went. He was pretty sure they weren’t lying. They simply didn’t know. He called Maria Hill and she told him nothing and he was pretty sure she _did_ know where Natasha was. 

He figured she’d asked Fury to send her on a mission in a fit of anger. She’d certainly been furious when she’d stormed out. 

The Avengers Initiative was on and off the table on a near daily basis. Tony had left the building and headed back to California and Pepper Potts. Thor, of course, had gone back to Asgard. Someone needed to keep an eye on Loki. Even imprisoned, he was dangerous. Clint disappeared a few weeks after Natasha left so he was rattling around in Stark Tower with the staff and JARVIS as company. 

He was bored to death. 

“Fury, can I be assigned to something down there in DC? I’m on my own up here and I have nothing to do unless the world is ending and I get called in,” he told Fury on the phone, after he’d already told Jasper Sitwell and Hill the same thing. 

“Yeah, we can find you an apartment and you can work for SHIELD. I’m sure there are some ops with Rumlow and the STRIKE team you can do.” 

He packed his meager belongings and took a flight to DC. Maria Hill picked him up at the airport and took him to the apartment they’d gotten for him. He filled out all the paperwork and moved in. 

“You’re high in the pecking order, Captain Rogers. You got your own washer and dryer,” Hill told him as she showed him his new home and gave him his keys.

He had no doubt that his new home was bugged and surveilled as much as his quarters had been in Stark Tower. No one even went to the toilet there without JARVIS having a record of it. They’d all known it, but no one ever complained about it. He didn’t do anything that would be of much interest to anyone anyway. When he wasn’t fighting bad guys somewhere, he was running or destroying punching bags in the gym. 

He really missed Natasha. She’d never treated him differently than she did anyone else. He’d thought they were friends when she disappeared so suddenly after he got hurt. Now he didn’t know what to think. 

He settled into a routine fairly quickly. He found that he really liked running out on the National Mall early in the morning. There weren’t any tourists there yet, and only a few runners, none of whom could hold a candle to him. He did enjoy seeing some of the same faces every day. 

There was a girl named Kate in his building, who he’d spoken to a few times. She was pretty and friendly, but he hadn’t worked up enough nerve to ask her out yet. He could fight aliens and monsters, but a pretty, blond nurse scared him to death. 

*

Natasha’s mission had gone fairly well so far. She’d gotten into the group quite quickly and though they were deadly, they were fairly inexperienced and did not check her out before bringing her into their fold, a fatal mistake for them. Her cover was ex-military, fed up with the system and wanting to change it by any means necessary. She found them just trained enough to be deadly and idealistic enough to be dangerous. 

Clint joined them after a few weeks, thoughtlessly accepted on her word alone. They posed as lovers, which was a cover they often used. Her expertise with computers and her military know-how made her valuable as the anarchists sought a way to get into heavily guarded and protected government sites in Northern Europe. 

The first question she’d asked Barton when he arrived, after the kissing and hugging for show, was “How is Rogers?” 

“What the hell, Nat? You disappeared and even I had no idea what was going on until Hill called me.” 

“I had to get away from him before I killed him,” she told Clint, sounding rather off hand. 

He knew her well enough to know that her tone had nothing to do with how she felt. The more nonchalant she sounded, the more serious something was. 

“Him?” 

“Rogers.”

He nodded. “So it’s that way, then.” 

“What way?” She leaned toward him maybe an inch, maybe two. 

“I’ve known you longer than anyone else. He’s under your skin and in a way you don’t know how to deal with.” 

“I just worry about his idea that he’s invincible.”

Barton didn’t believe that was all of it for a single moment. “He damn near is.”

“But he isn’t. I don’t know what -” she abruptly shut her mouth. 

“You’d do without him?” 

“Maybe. But not how you think?”

“Do you know what I think?”

“That I’m fucking him. I’m not.” 

“Hell, no. You’ve never given a shit about the men you’ve had to fuck. Oh damn, you want him?” 

“He’s not my type.” 

“What _is_ your type then?” Clint was enjoying this too much, once he’d found her weakness. 

“Not him.” 

“Nat, he’s everybody’s type. Hell, most of the men I know would bang him.” 

She made a very rude noise. 

“There’s nothing wrong with liking him.”

“There is if he fucking dies. Now shut up before I kill you and tell Fury and Hill that you died a hero while saving me.”

Clint grinned and nodded, but he wasn’t done with her yet. He’d wait. 

*

Steve had fallen into a routine. He did busywork at SHIELD, unless he had a mission. Missions usually meant he was working with Rumlow and the STRIKE team. Rumlow was good at what he did, but there was something that Steve didn’t like about him. He seemed too familiar with Steve when he really didn’t know him that well. It was a bit off-putting. 

He missed Natasha and still had no idea what he’d done to piss her off so much. Any efforts to find her led to a stone wall. Neither Hill nor Fury would give him any real information. 

“She’s on assignment,” was as informative as either of them got. 

One morning after he arrived at SHIELD, he got a text from Hill to report to Fury at once. 

The usual suspects were there, Rumlow and the heads of several other black ops units. 

“You’ll get your details in the air,” was all they got before taking off. 

Once airborne, they were told they were taking alien tech back from a group of anarchists in Germany. When they breached the warehouse in Berlin where the tech was being loaded on trucks for moving, there were Natasha and Barton, right in the middle of the group. Natasha seemed to be calling the shots for the terrorists. That’s what she’d been up to.

The group was better trained than he’d first thought and he figured he could thank Natasha for that. He and his colleagues took them down, spiriting the tech away and leaving the surviving criminals for the local law enforcement agencies to take care of. Steve killed when he needed to, but this gang seemed awfully young. Rumlow had no such qualms and shot every one he saw.

Natasha and Clint rode the Quinjet back to SHIELD with them. 

Steve didn’t know whether to talk to her or not. Clint fixed that. 

“Heard you moved to DC, Cap.” 

“Yeah, after everyone left me alone in Stark Tower, Fury called me back to DC. Been there for a couple of months.” 

Natasha didn’t say much on the flight, but Steve caught her staring at him once or twice. When they landed, he stopped her before she could slip away. 

“Are we okay? You seemed so angry last time I saw you.” 

She looked up into that sincere face and knew she couldn’t stay angry with him forever. She’d think about what Clint said about the two of them some other time. 

“I’m good. I needed to get away for a bit. I see you’re recovered nicely, though.”

“Kinda shy of thunderstorms though.”

“But not monsters?” She arched her eyebrow at him. 

“Not run into any more of them. Fury’s had me pushing a pencil a lot.”

“Sounds worse than monsters.” She actually smiled when she said it.

“I run a lot.” 

Before she managed to get away, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. He was a little confused at how glad he was to see her. 

*

Natasha and Barton ended up back in New York for a while. She texted with Rogers fairly often and seemed set on trying to find him dates. He had no time for dates and didn’t find himself particularly interested in dating right now anyway. He wasn’t sure he had much to offer anyone in a relationship. 

There was a guy he saw every morning when he ran the mall. He ran around him several times with his superior speed. One morning they spoke. The guy was a vet named Sam Wilson. They exchanged some info and Steve decided he might follow up later, maybe make a friend. He didn’t need a girlfriend, but a friend would be a nice thing to have. It wasn’t something he’d done too often since he’d been thawed. 

The first time he’d really had a chance to talk to Sam, Natasha texted him while he was talking to him and arrived seconds later to pick him up for a mission. 

They took off to rescue the hijacked _Lemurian Star_. The mission had gone fairly well, but they could have used some help from Natasha. Steve was pissed off by the fact that she was downloading files from the SHIELD ship while the rest of them were rescuing hostages. They’d argued on the ship and argued more on the way home.

“Why does Fury need files from a SHIELD ship? Doesn’t he already have access to them? We needed your help, not to wait on you to spy for Fury.” Steve was concerned that something untoward was going on, and that Fury had mixed him and Natasha up in it. It was not hard to believe that Fury only told then what he had to.

”I don’t know, Steve. I don’t ask. I do my damned job.” 

He went to talk to Fury as soon as they got back and was introduced to Project Insight. It sounded like the thing that people like Johann Schmidt would do, not SHIELD. He told Fury he disagreed with anything that profiled people as criminal or subversive before they actually did anything to prove it. It went against everything he believed in. 

He had not seen Natasha since they’d gotten back. She was angry that he went to Fury with his concerns. If he’d been less angry, he’d have thought that she was mad at him telling Fury that she’d revealed her mission to him.

* 

Natasha Romanov was also angry that she had been so easily manipulated by Fury. Her past always put her at a slight disadvantage when dealing with her employers. Fury wasn’t above holding her past over her head now and again. She didn’t have to like it, did she?

Rogers was right, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that. She still was stewing over whether Clint was right as well. Did she have a thing for Rogers? Maybe. He was not like any man she’d ever met anywhere. Did she want the whole romance thing? Hell, she wasn’t even sure Rogers had ever kissed a woman besides Peggy Carter seventy years ago. He knew as little about real romance and love as she did. 

She was still stewing when Maria Hill called her. 

“Nick’s been shot. He was at Cap’s apartment. Cap chased the shooter but he got away. He insisted that the shooter was enhanced somehow.”

Oh shit! 

It turned out worse than she’d thought. Fury died on the operating table with her, Steve, and Maria watching from outside the OR. 

She was still reeling over Fury’s death when Rumlow came for Steve at the hospital. Director Pierce at SHIELD wanted to see him, wanted to know why Fury had been in his apartment. She saw Steve hide a computer flash drive in a vending machine, the same drive she’d downloaded and given to Fury when they got back from the mission on the _Lemurian Star_ . 

This did not look good. 

She hung around the corridor, disappearing into the scenery. She’d nabbed the drive when the hallways had been clear.

Several hours later, Steve showed up at the hospital. From the way he looked, he’d been in a fight. He went straight to the vending machine. She walked up behind him, told him she had the flash drive and that they needed to find out what the fuck was going on. 

He pushed her into a closet, not sure he could trust her either. Fury had warned him not to trust anyone. She told him about the Winter Soldier, the man she believed shot Fury in Steve’s apartment. She told him that she’d been shot through so he could kill his real target years before. She saw his eyes when she showed him the scar, saw that he wanted to touch it. She didn’t know what to think about that so she filed it away for later. 

He told her that Pierce wanted to know why Fury was at house and insinuated that Fury was a traitor, running things for his own purposes. Fury could be an ass and kept things to himself when he wanted to, but neither of them believed him to be a traitor. 

They settled on a computer store in the mall to try to read the drive. They couldn’t read the file but did find out that it was getting a signal from somewhere in New Jersey.

Rumlow arrived with his team and they had to run. When she had Steve kiss her in the mall to deflect Rumlow’s attention, Natasha got a real surprise. His kiss was sweet, too damned sweet. Her heart sped up for those few seconds it lasted. Damn! That was not supposed to happen at all. 

They went to the place the drive directed them, the same deserted Army camp where Steve had trained in World War II. They found out things so devastating that Natasha felt like her world had been jerked away again. SHIELD had been infiltrated by HYDRA almost from the beginning. Armin Zola had set them up after the war and his consciousness had directed them ever since his death, inserting his HYDRA objectives into everything they did. They ran when the SHIELD missile hit and ended up at the home of the guy she’d met on the Mall with Steve. 

Then things got really weird. 

*

Sam Wilson offered them refuge without question. He liked Steve and thought the redhead was hot. From the steaming looks she was giving Rogers, she thought he was hot. The two showered one after the other while Sam made breakfast. They talked about what happened and realized they needed to talk to Jasper Sitwell, who’d been on the ship and was one of Pierce’s right hand men.

Sam offered them his help as well. He threw in with Steve right off the bat, glad to be back in action. 

They retrieved Sam’s wings and went for Sitwell. They had to know what Zola’s algorithm was. When they found out, there was no question that they’d stop it. HYDRA was going to use Project Insight to find and eliminate its enemies - everywhere. 

Sam fit right into their tiny rebel group. 

 

*

Once they had Sitwell, the Winter Soldier hit them, killing Sitwell and drawing Steve, Sam and Natasha into a battle on the city streets. Natasha got winged by a bullet in the battle with the Winter Soldier, but she wasn’t injured badly. The enemy soldier’s mask had come off, exposing him as none other than Bucky Barnes, Steve’s one true friend since the beginning of his life. Steve was so gutted by the fact that his friend was alive and didn’t seem to know him that he didn’t even seem to care when Rumlow’s team caught them all. 

Maria Hill managed to rescue them and took them to talk to a very much alive Fury. This time Steve told Fury how it was going to go. A SHIELD compromised by HYDRA had to go, plain and simple. So did those damned helicarriers. He would not discuss any other options, so Fury had no choice but agree. 

Hill had a drive to be inserted into each of the three helicarriers to disable all the Project Insight targets and make them target and destroy one another. It wasn’t easy but Sam and Steve did it while Natasha went with Fury to the Triskelion. After the helicarriers went down, Fury had shot and killed Pierce. 

After all the helicarriers had been destroyed, Steve had been found on the banks of the Potomac He had several bullet wounds, was unconscious and no one seemed to know how he’d managed to get out of the water. He certainly couldn’t remember. 

Natasha walked into his hospital room. Sam smiled at her and stood. “I need some coffee. I’ll be back later, Cap.” 

Steve looked pretty good for someone who’d been shot several times, certainly better than he had when he was hit with Thor’s lightning. She leaned over the bed and kissed his cheek. He put a hand on her arm to keep her there. He looked into her eyes, pulled her close again for a kiss, a real kiss. 

“Someone’s feeling a lot better.” She grinned at him, deliberately keeping it light, trying not to let the pounding of her heart show on her face. 

“Yeah, well, the serum is amazing.” 

“I have to go to some hearings at the capitol. They’re looking into us, want to blame _us_ for Peirce and HYDRA.” Her rage was only barely controlled. 

“Can I ask a favor?” He looked so earnest. 

“Maybe.” 

“Can you find out anything about Bucky, about the Winter Soldier for me?” 

“I can try. There are still a few people in Moscow who owe me.”

“You’re a pal, Natasha.” 

She laughed. Sometimes he was so old fashioned. 

He was out of the hospital in a few days. When Natasha had let all the secrets out, her own had come out, too. She was an open target for anyone who’d ever wanted to kill her. She needed to hide and regroup. Steve was determined to look for Barnes. At Fury’s grave, she’d given him the folder of information she’d gotten from her contact in Moscow.

*

Steve looked at the folder once he got back to Sam’s house. He found a card from a motel clipped to the inside cover. On the back, in Natasha’s handwriting was a note: _I’m here. Come by before you leave. Room 312._

His first thought was why would she want to see him?

His second thought was the kiss in the hospital. He’d been so glad to see her. He thought perhaps his feelings for her were deeper than he’d understood before all this happened. Maybe that was why she left New York, maybe she only considered him a friend. 

“Sam, I’ll be back tonight or maybe tomorrow. There’s something I have to do.” 

Sam had just grinned and nodded. He knew. 

She let him in and he realized he had no idea what to do. He’d never had to make the first move. He’d never cared much, except for Peggy. Fortunately, Steve liked strong, confident women who weren’t shy about what they wanted. 

Natasha put her arms around him and hugged him. “I’m glad they didn’t kill you.”

He smiled at her awkward confession. “Me too.” He was not a brilliant conversationalist. 

“Where will you and Sam go?” 

“I don’t know yet. There are a lot of files to sort through in all the information you liberated onto the internet. We’ll start there.” 

“You staying with him?” 

“Yeah. For now. He’s a hell of a guy.”

She, sort of abruptly, put her arms around him again and kissed his cheek. He stopped talking and she kissed his mouth. He put his arms around her and returned the kiss, boldly slipping his tongue in her mouth, sliding it over hers as he tightened the embrace. 

“Why did you come here?” she asked him, a little breathless form the kisses. 

He wanted to blurt out that he thought he loved her, that the scar from the Winter Soldier had somehow broken his heart for her as much as it had made him want her, and that he’d been terrified that Pierce would kill her when she slipped into the Triskelion with Fury. 

“You sent me the address. I – I wanted to see you again,” was what he said instead. 

They kissed again. 

She was small in his arms. He felt the urge to protect her from harm and, finally, he began to see why she’d been so angry when he’d put himself out there, when he’d plunged into deadly situations without a thought for his own safety. She cared about him, too? 

“Will you stay tonight?” she asked when the kiss ended. 

“Do you mean -” he had to make sure, but she interrupted him. 

“I mean that I want you in my bed tonight. If you want it, too, that is.” 

“God, yes,” he whispered to her and kissed her again. 

After that kiss, she took his hand, led him to the bed and began to unbutton his shirt. His heart was pounding in his chest as he watched her hands work the buttons. She shoved the shirt back over his shoulders. He shrugged out of it as her hands found the faint scar on his stomach from the gut shot. It would be gone soon. He gasped when she leaned down and kissed it. 

“God, Natasha -”

She paused for a second and kissed it again. Then she began to unbuckle his belt. 

The sound he made this time wasn’t a word, just a quick intake of breath as she made quick work of the one button and began to unzip him. She pushed his pants and boxers down together and he stepped out of them after he got the shoes off. 

He was pretty sure if she touched him at this moment in time, he would be done. He reached for her, for the hem of her shirt. He pulled it over her head and tossed it away. Her bra was dark, blue maybe. It was hard to tell in the dim light. Her breasts swelled over the lace. He removed it and tossed it aside, too. She had a new red scar near her shoulder from being shot. He didn’t touch it for fear of causing her pain, but he did find the one Bucky had given her before. He sat on the bed and leaned down to kiss it. 

“I think you’d still look fine in a bikini,” he told her as he unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, shoving them down as she had his. When she was naked, he told her, “You look fine in nothing at all, too.” 

He pulled her naked body against his. She melted against him. “I was terrified when you got shot.”

“Now you know how I felt when you let Thor zap you with his lightning,” she murmured as she ran her hands over his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry you were afraid and I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but I can’t.” 

“I know, Steve. I know. Now shut up and make love to me.” 

He turned the lamp by the bed off so the only light in the room was the ambient light from the city. He lay back on the bed, pulling her on top of him. 

“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say.” 

He knew better than to ever argue with Natasha.


End file.
